The Diary of Anne Frank
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50 free The Diary of Anne Frank trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Anne Frank began her diary as a schoolgirl and kept it through more than two years in hiding in occupied Amsterdam. Published after the war as The Diary of a Young Girl, it has become one of the most widely read books of the twentieth century. This quiz covers the book and its best-known adaptations. Expect questions on the people who shared the Secret Annex, the helpers who kept them alive, the names Anne invented for them, and how her pages survived and reached print. There is a full set on the Goodrich and Hackett stage play too, from its opening scene to its last, along with the cast and crew of the Hollywood film. It suits students revising the book or the play for class, teachers who need a ready-made review, and book clubs. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even from the ones you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which actress, still in high school, made her Broadway debut as Anne Frank in a 1997 revival?
Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman took the role at the Music Box Theatre two years before Star Wars made her famous. She visited the Anne Frank House twice to prepare for it.
Q 02To which imaginary friend did Anne Frank address the letters that make up most of her diary?
Kitty
Kitty probably took her name from a character in the Joop ter Heul novels Anne loved. In autumn 1942 Anne wrote to a whole circle of imaginary friends before settling on one.
Q 03Which Hollywood star, born within weeks of Anne Frank, turned down the chance to play her on screen?
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn, who spent her own teens in the occupied Netherlands, wrote back that she felt too old for the part and lacked the skill to play Anne.
Q 04Which piece of furniture hid the doorway to the Secret Annex where Anne Frank spent two years?
A bookcase
A bookcase that swung open like a door was built by the father of helper Bep Voskuijl. It hid the entrance until police came across it during the 1944 raid.
Q 05In which language did German-born Anne Frank write the diary she kept while in hiding?
Dutch
Dutch was the language she had spoken since her family moved to Amsterdam when she was four. The diary has since been translated into more than 70 others.
Q 06Who was the only one of the eight people hidden in the Secret Annex to survive the Holocaust?
Otto Frank
Otto Frank was too ill to be marched out of Auschwitz and was freed there by Soviet troops in January 1945. He devoted the rest of his life to his daughter's diary.
Q 07Which kind of object in space, first spotted in 1942, was later named in honour of Anne Frank?
An asteroid
An asteroid found in 1942, the year she began her diary, was named 5535 Annefrank in 1995. NASA's Stardust probe flew past it in 2002.
Q 08The couple who adapted Anne Frank's diary for Broadway also co-wrote which Christmas film classic?
It's a Wonderful Life
It's a Wonderful Life is among the screenplays of Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, who also wrote The Thin Man and Father of the Bride before taking on the diary.
Q 09Which helper saved Anne Frank's diary pages after the arrest and kept them unread in a drawer?
Miep Gies
Miep Gies said that if she had read the pages she would have had to destroy them, because they named every helper and their black-market suppliers.
Q 10For which occasion did Anne Frank receive the red-checked notebook that became her diary?
Her 13th birthday
Her 13th birthday present was no surprise, because she had picked the notebook out herself in a bookshop near home the day before. Within a month she had taken it into hiding.
Q 11The Secret Annex where Anne Frank wrote her diary lay at the back of which Amsterdam building?
Her father's company
Her father's company carried on trading on the floors below while eight people kept silent upstairs. By day they had to stay quiet so the warehouse staff would not hear them.
Q 12Whose summons to a Nazi labour camp sent the family into the Secret Annex the very next day?
Margot Frank
Margot Frank was 16 when the notice arrived on 5 July 1942, and the family left home the next morning. She kept a diary of her own, but no trace of it has been found.
Q 13Which badge does Anne Frank's diary describe Jews in the occupied Netherlands being forced to wear?
A yellow star
Q 21In which city was Anne Frank born in 1929, before her family fled Nazi rule for Amsterdam?
Frankfurt
Frankfurt was home until Hitler took power in 1933. Her father went ahead to set up a business in Amsterdam, and Anne followed at the age of four.
Q 22Opekta, the firm run by Anne Frank's father, sold an ingredient that helped households make what?
Jam
Jam was what Opekta's pectin was sold for, and its adverts urged households to make their own. A sister firm, Pectacon, traded in spices.
Q 23What prompted Anne Frank in March 1944 to begin rewriting her diary with publication in mind?
A radio broadcast
A radio broadcast from London by an exiled government minister promised a public record of the occupation built from diaries and letters. She began redrafting hers on loose sheets.
A yellow star is among the humiliations she records, alongside the arrests and deportations of neighbours. Rumours of gassings reach the annex only as vague hearsay.
Q 14Which Allied operation of June 1944 gave Anne Frank and the others in hiding hope of liberation?
The Normandy landings
The Normandy landings began on 6 June 1944, and the group in the annex knew of them. They were arrested on 4 August, six weeks before Allied troops reached the Netherlands.
Q 15Which career did Anne Frank write in her diary that she wanted to pursue after the war?
A journalist
A journalist was her stated goal in an April 1944 entry, where she also wonders whether she will ever write something great. She drafted part of a novel in hiding too.
Q 16In the play The Diary of Anne Frank, which festival does Anne mark with homemade gifts for everyone?
Hanukkah
Hanukkah closes the first act, when the party is cut short by a crash from the offices below. Anne's singing is what steadies everyone afterwards.
Q 17In The Diary of Anne Frank, what is the profession of Mr. Dussel, the last person to join the annex?
A dentist
A dentist some forty years older than Anne, he was given a bed in her small room. Their clashes fill many of her sharpest entries.
Q 18In which concentration camp did Anne Frank die in early 1945, weeks before British troops freed it?
Bergen-Belsen
Bergen-Belsen was liberated on 15 April 1945. She had been sent there from Auschwitz the previous autumn, and the exact date of her death was never recorded.
Q 19Which major American award did the Broadway play The Diary of Anne Frank win, along with a Tony?
The Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize for Drama went to its writers, Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. The original production ran for 717 performances on Broadway.
Q 20In which format did Ari Folman and David Polonsky retell Anne Frank's diary?
A graphic novel
A graphic novel came first, and Folman then directed the 2021 animated film Where Is Anne Frank in the same visual style, with her imaginary friend brought to life in the present day.
Q 24Which famous American wrote the introduction to the first US edition of Anne Frank's diary in 1952?
Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt introduced the Doubleday edition, which became a best-seller. Judith Jones, a young Doubleday employee in Paris, had pulled the book out of a pile of rejected submissions.
Q 25Under which title was Anne Frank's diary first published in Amsterdam in 1947?
Het Achterhuis
Het Achterhuis literally means the back house, usually rendered in English as the secret annex. The first printing of 3,000 copies soon sold out.
Q 26In the play The Diary of Anne Frank, which gift from her father does Mrs. Van Daan prize most?
A fur coat
A fur coat is the thing she is forever stroking in the attic. Anne spills milk on it, and in the second act her husband has it sold over her protests.
Q 27In the play The Diary of Anne Frank, what does Mrs. Frank catch Mr. Van Daan doing one night?
Stealing food
Stealing food makes the usually mild Mrs. Frank demand that he leave the hiding place at once. The row only ends when a helper arrives with good news about the war.
Q 28In The Diary of Anne Frank, what is the name of the cat that Peter brings with him into hiding?
Mouschi
Mouschi shared the annex with eight people, and in the 1959 film Peter's father wants him gone for eating too much. Anne's own cat had to be left behind with neighbours.
Q 29Which actress gave the Oscar she won for the film The Diary of Anne Frank to the Anne Frank House?
Shelley Winters
Shelley Winters won Best Supporting Actress as Mrs. Van Daan, having promised to give any Oscar for the role to the museum. She handed the statuette over in 1975.
Q 30To which country did neighbours wrongly believe Anne Frank's family had escaped in July 1942?
Switzerland
Switzerland was a false trail the family laid on purpose. They left their flat in disarray, with a note hinting they had gone to the country where relatives already lived.